Although the invention can relate to other analogous or similar industries, by way of background, the printing industry will be discussed herein. In most short-run printing shops, about 25,000 sheets, more or less, need to be printed on one side of the paper and then those sheets need to be turned over for printing the opposite side as soon as possible.
However, until the ink has dried, the paper cannot be compressed or it will stick together, which causes off-setting. In short-run shops, it is necessary to print the opposite side and not wait until the ink has finished drying. In order to do this, the paper has to be turned over by hand, placed on a skid and fed back into the press so the second side can be printed.
Skid turners known in the art are typically not movable or mobile and those that are mobile are manually operated such as the hand pushed mini-fork lifts and the rotation or inverting function is not done in a backward motion. Also, in prior art devices, the paper needs to be compressed, otherwise, the paper will fall out on to the floor as the rotation function is performed. Further, aeration means is not present in mobile unit known in the art, and ink sticking problems are encountered when the forks over-compress the paper stack because the prior art mobile devices need to compress the paper stack in order to perform the inverting function. Therefore, care must be taken to take the time to let the ink dry before attempting to handle the skid with current prior art mobile devices.
The reason why the prior art skid turners have to compress the paper between the two skids or pallets is because they turn the paper in a clockwise or counter-clockwise inverting or rotation movement. If the paper comes loose during the turn, it will end up sliding and will not be centered on the skid or will fall onto the floor.
What is needed is a movable skid turner that will not compress the paper and will aerate it.